The original rosters
announced for both the East and West teams in today’s NBA All Star Game
were all black: 24 out of 24. In fact, all were American-born blacks.
An injury last week to Jimmy Butler of the East led to Spaniard Pau
Gasol being substituted in. (A subsequent injury to Chris Bosh led to Al
Horford, a black born in the Dominican Republic, being added.)
No American-born whites are on either NBA All Star team.
Several All-Stars, however, are mulattos. In fact, it’s becoming
pretty common for All-Stars, such as Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson of
this year’s superlative Golden State Warriors (and Joakim Noah and Tony
Parker in years past), to be sons of black professional athletes and hot
white moms. Dads Dell Curry played 16 seasons in the NBA and Mychal
Thompson played 12.
This year’s #AllStarsSoBlack game is a bit of a statistical fluke. Last year’s rosters included four whites (three Europeans — the Gasol Brothers and Dirk Nowitzki — and Kyle Korver, who grew up in Pella, Iowa). The 2014 game had two white players, Nowitzki and Oregon-raised Kevin Love. But the 2013 game had only one or two whites (David Lee and, perhaps, Brook Lopez).
Is this the result of systemic racism?
Probably a little bit. The fact that most good white basketball
players these days either come from overseas or from extremely white
parts of North America is curious. For example, here’s where two-time
NBA MVP Steve Nash played high school ball:
You might think, a priori, that growing up competing against the best black talent would be good for tall white guys.
But instead it seems to drive them into tennis or water polo or whatever.
But, mostly, #AllStarsSoBlack just seems to be the usual combination
of nature and nurture leading to racial imbalance among top performers.
[Comment at Unz.com]